Movie Review: THE PYRAMID

Any time a specific genre sect works, there are bound to be a million “me too” efforts that will follow in the wake.  The fine folks at 20th Century Fox have made a couple of quick cash grabs in the “found footage” department, dumping in an off peak time and marketing well enough to have a solid first week and a VOD release about two months later.  The Pyramid was the most recent of these efforts, which had a cool little trailer that promised a Descent in India kinda thing.  What’s uber perplexing is they didn’t even seem to TRY to sell it and threw it out close to Christmas with virtually no advertisement.  Universally panned, by the second week it was down to two show times a day at theaters around here, and it disappeared until now.  I’m not sure why I was expecting anything, but I’m a sucker for Ashley Hinshaw and Alex Aja, so what the hell?

A documentary filmmaker has set out to film a major archeological find in Egypt, a long hidden tomb newly discovered. Forbidden to enter, a three person archeology crew sends a $3 million dollar rover in to take a peek. When said equipment is disrupted and the signal is lost, which they for some reason imagine was done by a dog, the searchers and the film crew head in to retrieve it.  Of course there’s a cave in and the team is forced to discover the secrets of the tomb in order to find their way out.  They soon discover they’re not alone in there and the entrance was hidden for a reason — to keep OUT what’s inside.

I strive to find redeeming qualities in every movie or show I watch, and occasionally I’ll end up liking things a bit too much when I pick all the wheat from the chaff.  With The Pyramid I couldn’t find a single redemption in sight.  Found footage doesn’t work when you end up cutting inexplicably to outside angles not used by the handheld devices you’ve established as our viewpoint, so that was the first mistake.  Grégory Levasseur’s pedestrian direction is so boring and the film lacks any kind of suspense or tension, instead going for a dreary “explorer” vibe like 1999’s The Mummy without the campy glee.  Levasseur has been one of Aja’s long time collaborators and it appears none of the talent has been passed along the way.  Wooden character outlines with no redeeming qualities are the second major issue.  Hinshaw’s a cutie and incredibly sexy, but she’s not given anything to do in the movie.  An even worse waste is The Inbetweeners‘ favorite James Buckley who as the cameraman doesn’t even get to be a comic relief, inexplicably.  The movie could have used a sense of humor and not taking itself so seriously, too.  The CGI is on a level of sub Van Helsing quality.  There are small cat-like creatures that are horribly animated, and there’s a larger beast that if done practically and with low lighting could have been frightening rather than looking like an unrendered video game cut scene.

Alex Aja put his name on this as a producer, and if there were a good time to go Alan Smithee as an EP…well, by all means this is the one to do it on.  Even his signature love of gore doesn’t make an appearance, with the film being R rated for primarily one glorious moment.  Seriously, the movie is a waste of 90 minutes unlike many I’ve seen.  It’s not entertaining, it’s not fun, it’s not suspenseful, it’s not gruesome, it’s not exciting, and it’s not even amusingly bad.  Stay away.